"Today at Uber's all-hands meeting, I directed a comment to my colleague and friend Arianna Huffington that was careless, inappropriate, and inexcusable," Bonderman said in a statement. Huffington is a member of Uber's board. "The comment came across in a way that was the opposite of what I intended, but I understand the destructive effect it had, and I take full responsibility for that."

Uber has been contending with a series of scandals since a former engineer published a blog post accusing the company of widespread gender discrimination and saying it did nothing in response to her complaints that a manager sexually harassed her.

On Tuesday, Uber released to employees a report put together by former US Attorney General Eric Holder, whose private law firm investigated the company's workplace environment in response to the former engineer's complaints and came up with a list of recommendations for how Uber could improve its culture. The board was discussing those recommendations with employees when Bonderman made his comment.

During the presentation, Huffington announced Wan Ling Martello, a Nestlé executive, would be joining Uber's board, upping the representation of women there.

"There's a lot of data that shows when there's one woman on the board it's much more likely that there will be a second woman on the board," Huffington said, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by Yahoo Finance.

Bonderman responded by saying, "Actually, what it shows is that it's much more likely to be more talking."